A glance at her worldwide touring schedule in 2019 shows little sign that Lucy Dacus is slowing down, in fact, she’s releasing a series of songs titled 2019 to celebrate! Recorded in here-and-there studio spurts over the last two years, 2019 will be released later this year as a physical EP, and will
be made up of originals and cover songs tied to specific holidays, each of which will drop around their
respective date: Valentine’s Day, Taurus season and US Mother’s Day, American Independence Day,
Springsteen’s Birthday, Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s.
In honour of Valentine’s Day, Dacus has released a cover of Edith Piaf’s ‘La Vie En Rose’ sung in both
French and English. Dacus’ clear vocals and faint vibrato float over the chiming piano, a starry-eyed,
upbeat take on the classic tune, and a hint at her pop-star potential. “From the first time I heard it, I
thought ‘La Vie En Rose’ was a perfect song. Hearing it, I knew that, one day, I would fall in love,”
says Dacus, adding “I want someone to listen to this while running at top speed to the doorstep of the
person they adore, ready to profess their deep, undying love. (P.S., there’s a longer story about
singing this song as a duet with my middle school janitor, but it is not concise).”
Dacus uses her gift as a songwriter to help understand and cope with the world around her, including
making sense of national holidays, often more geared towards social media boasts and manufactured
consumerism than authentic celebration. “What is going on,” she asks herself on these days,
retreating from the heightened expectations of holidays to figure out what to make of them and to find
her own meaning. “I’ve collected some songs from trying to answer that question,” she says, and
“this series seems like the right place to put them next to each other. These songs are self-
contained, not indicative of a new direction, just a willingness to do something different and
sometimes even out of character.”
2018 was a milestone year for Richmond, VA’s Lucy Dacus. Her widely celebrated sophomore
record, Historian, was met by a cavalcade of critical elation including Best Of 2019 coverage from
The Guardian, Noisey, Pitchfork, The Line Of Best Fit and Rolling Stone among many others,
features in MOJO (‘Rising’), BBC Entertainment & Arts, Loud & Quiet, Uncut, and plays across BBC 6 Music, Radio 2 and Radio X. Her collaborative EP as 1/3 of boygenius (with Julien Baker and Phoebe
Bridgers) became one of the most talked-about new projects of the year, and was heralded by
publications including The Guardian, The Observer, i-D, New Statesman, Uncut and MOJO. Dacus
headlined UK venues including London’s Islington Assembly Hall and Omeara, and made US national
TV appearances on CBS This Morning, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and Last Call With Carson Daly.
“A thoughtful, emotionally astute account of loss in all its bittersweet varieties” – BBC
Arts & Entertainment
